Week 14 13-03-15 Armando’s Rhumba and So Nice

I recorded the first part of today’s session working on So Nice and I have put some mp3s in the Dropbox: a run through of the theme and four trios. Have a listen and see what you think - I thought there was some lovely improvising and excellent listening. We’ll do some more next week.

After tea we had another go at the minim-crotchet-quaver-semiquaver exercise which most people seem to be OK with. So, now how about trying to clap one pulse and tap your foot to another (eg clap crotchets, tap minims). Then see if you can swap them over (so you clap minims and tap crotchets).

For the remainder of the session we worked on Armando’s Rhumba. The head is sounding tighter - I’d like to try and speed it up next week. Improvising over the whole sequence everyone appears to be negotiating the chords pretty well but I think bars 13 - 20 could be clearer. 

We should look at bars 13 - 16 (perhaps as a 4 bar loop). Bar 13 is a diminished chord and we discussed the idea of treating bar 14 as another diminished chord (in concert it would be A diminished ). Both of these chords would typically take whole-half diminished scale.

in concert

  Abdim  =  Ab  Bb  B  C#  D  E  F  G  Ab

  Adim  =  A  B  C  D  Eb  F  F#  G#  A

in Bb

  Bbdim  =  Bb  C  Db  Eb  E  F#  G  A  Bb

  Bdim  =  B  C#  D  E  F  G  Ab  Bb  B

in Eb

  Fdim  =  F  G  Ab  Bb  B  C#  D  E  F

  F#dim  =  F#  G#  A  B  C  D  Eb  F  F#

As well as finding good melodic shapes and lines to play on these two chords it is also important to resolve in some way on to the chord in bar 15 (in concert Eb/Bb ).

Bars 17 and 18 could also do with some attention. (See my old notes for scale info).

At some point we should try improvising over this piece at a faster tempo (and I’d like to try introducing some flamenco-style clapping - not necessarily exactly as per Chick Corea’s version).

That’s all for now. Have a good week and enjoy your clapping and tapping …